The Latest Addition to the Family
by heroofmyownstory
Summary: "I'm sorry, Mom," Rory said. Her mother looked old, distraught, heartbroken and vulnerable. Rory didn't want to do this to her, but neither she nor her mother mattered anymore. All that mattered was the new life inside of her, one full of potential, who hasn't made any mistakes yet and who and who could still yet be anything she wanted to be. "But I've got to do this."
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"Rory… I know that I am not one to judge, as I got pregnant at 16. But that was 16… at 35, you really should have been more careful about protection." _Mom, I was on birth control, but the pill isn't a 100% effective –_ "I dedicated my entire life to raising you so you wouldn't end up making the same mistakes I did! The problem isn't that you're pregnant – it's that you're not even in a relationship with the father!" _Neither were you, and I –_ "Maybe it's because of me. Maybe, because I pushed your father away from me, you have all these issues with men –" _Mom, you didn't push Dad away; you gave him a choice, and he consistently chose to stay away._ "But you're 35 now! How long are you going to blame me for your own mistakes!?" _Mom, it was never your fault to begin with._

Rory had so wanted to voice her own opinions during her heated debate with Lorelai, the morning of her wedding, which she had selfishly ruined – oh, what had become of the once self-reliant, ambitious and moral girl she had once been!? Everything had started with Jess, but her own actions had continued long after Jess was gone from her life. Maybe, the ghost of it had always been inside of her, repressed, and when Jess appeared on the scene, it burst forward – maybe, a part of her mother had always been inside of her, a part that she had repressed because she knew Lorelai would never approve. But when it came to DNA, the personality you got was sort of the same as your appearance: you didn't get much choice in what genes you got.

She was her parents' child through and through: Christopher's selfishness, innumerable affairs and failed relationships, and her mother's recklessness. God, she was a fool in love. She hoped, certainly hoped, that she had inherited some of her mother's steadfastness and toughness as well. She was going to need it in the long run.

* * *

The following morning, Rory got up before sunrise. Upon an impulse that had been brewing inside of her for so long now, she turned on the lights – my, how they hurt her eyes – and started packing her bags. Not everything – she didn't _need_ everything – besides, she didn't have a lot of time, she had to leave before her mom woke up and noticed what she was up to. She knew her departure was going to break Lorelai's heart. She would leave a note, she decided, to ease her conscience. Her mother, who had practically ruined her life to give her a better one… she bit her lips, and they hurt, and she needed that hurt both to re-focus herself on the task at hand – securing a good future for her and her baby – as much as she needed to feel some sort of pain, some sort of retribution for what she was doing, because she felt she deserved it; and if life wasn't going to give it to her, she would give it to herself, because, apparently, she was both righteous and self-destructive like that…

She convinced herself it was better this way for all involved – Lorelai, the baby, her, and even Luke as well. She didn't want to be the rain on Luke and Lorelai's parade; she didn't want her mother's assistance – she could do it alone, after all, a Yale graduate and accomplished journalist! She didn't want her mother's pity, nor her scorn, nor Luke's embarrassed assistance to all of her mother's craziness…

No, she wanted to be alone, and raise the baby alone, how she wanted, without any sort of interference on her mother's part. Their relationship was strained enough as it was – she didn't want to turn into her mother, and she didn't want Lorelai to become her grandmother either. No, she had to leave before that happened. Before all hope of salvaging their relationship was lost.

She didn't want to be the shame of Stars Hollow, either. The girl who had so much potential… only to turn into a disaster: a serial adulterer (yikes!), pregnant without a father (well, not technically, but basically…), ruin all her remaining potential (which there wasn't much of, to be honest) with a baby… doomed to repeat her mother's mistakes from the start.

Looking back on her life, it all made so much sense… at Lorelai's fiftieth birthday, all things had come full circle. It wasn't without a stab of resentment and guilt that she felt that. She hated herself, and everything and everyone that had contributed to her final – and inevitable – plight. Like mother, like daughter. Apparently, escaping your parents' shadow was inevitable – God only knew how it had followed Lorelai her entire life…

Then she felt as though something was _moving_ inside of her stomach. She touched it, and she could feel it kicking. Serenity washed over her. She already knew, this was all worth it. She suddenly knew it was the right choice; she had to do what was best for her baby. Now, don't get me wrong; she didn't want to become one of those people who lost their identity because of parenthood. But she couldn't toss the baby's needs out the window in favor of her own. She didn't want to be that kind of parent, either. She supposed it was a slippery slope, and that she would simply have to see how she would do.

 _We'll see when we get there,_ she thought. _We'll see when we get there._

By the time she had finished packing her belongings and started packing into the car (her bare necessities had turned out to be more than enough for three suitcases, in the end), the sun had already risen. She desperately hoped her mother wouldn't notice, but she couldn't fight off the sense of impending doom hovering above her like a rain cloud. She could have packed faster, but she was starting a new life: she had to make sure she got everything perfect.

Suddenly, she heard the front door open, and her mother walk down the wooden, white steps of the porch. She would have recognized her mother's footsteps anywhere. To her own surprise, Rory felt perfectly calm, as though she had been secretly expecting it, as though she knew it was inevitable. The only thing that shocked her when she turned in the direction of the noise was seeing Luke trudging behind an equally distraught Lorelai. A sense of disappointment washed over her. She would have preferred this final, parting moment – until God knows when – to be private, to be between her and her mother only. But she had to accept, Luke was part of this family now, even if to Rory, it would always be just her and her mother, the dynamic duo, two against the world, against all the odds…

But alas, she thought, if there was one thing she had come to understand from life is that not all things were perfect. And just because in her youth she had been used to getting her own way, she wouldn't always get it, especially now, out of her parent's shadow, if only temporarily.

"Mom, Luke," she said, turning towards them, bracing herself for whatever was coming, standing with her back straight. She felt like she finally had a spine again – something that had long ago been felt missing from her life. Living for herself had got old fast. Now that she had a reason to get up in the morning, it made perfect sense to not let herself fall apart but to keep going. Her life no longer seemed pointless and mundane.

Luke and Lorelai were both in their pyjamas with their bathrobes wrapped around them. Their eyes – especially Lorelai's – were bloodshot, and she seemed more distraught than Rory had ever seen her.

Rory gulped hard. She had to brace it. It was all for the greater good…

"What the hell are you doing!?" Lorelai demanded. "I got your note – I read your note – you cannot possibly think –" Her mom was approaching, and out of a sudden and quick impulse, Rory quickly shut the trunk, locked the car and held firmly onto the keys, as though subconsciously fearing that her mother would try to physically stop her from leaving.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Rory said. She felt cruel – no, downright evil, even! Her mother looked old, distraught, heartbroken and vulnerable all at the same time. Rory didn't want to do this to her, and she shouldn't have. But neither she nor her mother mattered anymore. All that mattered, was the new life inside of her, one full of potential, who hasn't made any mistakes yet and who could still yet be anything. With new life, came new hope. "I have got to do this."

"No, Rory, you cannot do this! I will not allow you to do this! I will not allow you to make the same mistakes I did, after so many years investing into your upbringing, your education, your mental and emotional health –"

Rory was about to open her mouth, but Lorelai cut her short. Lorelai suddenly seemed like a ferocious lion – the image of the vulnerable old woman having suddenly vanished. "No, young lady, I will not let you do this! I have been your best friend all your life, and maybe that was my greatest mistake."

No, that was the best thing you had ever done –

"For the first time in your life, I am going to be your mother," Lorelai said. "Give me the keys."

"I'm 35, Mom."

"Well, you'll get the keys back when you started acting like it."

Rory took a step back. "Get away from me, Mom."

Lorelai's face fell. "I am not my mother, Lorelai Gilmore! I am not Emily Post! I do not deserve this treatment. I have done _everything_ for you –"

"Yes, Mom, and I am grateful and very sorry. But what's happened, happened. There's no changing it."

"Just get an abortion, for God's sake!" Lorelai was beside herself with regret, rage and disappointment.

"I wouldn't have wanted to be aborted, either." Rory snapped suddenly.

"Well, I'm sure if you hadn't been born, you wouldn't have minded either way."

"Mom!" Rory gasped, aghast.

"Lorelai!" Luke's sentiments mirrored her own. This subject was very insensitive to bring up with Rory; maybe with another kid – who had been planned and wanted from the get-go – it would have been different. But with Rory, it was a sensitive subject… perhaps not the best one to bring up to prevent further alienating Rory from her.

"Fine, fine!" Lorelai snapped irritably to shut them both up. "Look, kid!" she said, turning back to Rory. "I didn't raise you to be this."

"I know, Mom," Rory said, her voice betraying her suffering, "It isn't your fault. It's mine. So let me clean up my own mess, please? I promise I'll come and visit."

"No, no, no! We're a family! That baby needs a family, and just the two of you, that's not a family."

" _We_ were a family." Rory objected, her voice suddenly cold and her eyes devoid of any emotion.

"We were, yes, but not a _real_ one." Her mother, suddenly turning into a traditionalist. Who would have thought!? "You obviously have issues with men, which is why you're always either cheating or a mistress, or both at the same time! Rory, sweetheart, you've got to stop what you're doing –"

"STOP!" Rory screamed, the sides of her bloodshot eyes glistening with tears. Sniffling, wiping a tear from her face, she said, thereby breaking the stunned silence between the three of them, "We _were_ a family, Mom, and I had a great life. What I ruined, I ruined on my own. You don't have to blame yourself or your raising for what I've become. It was totally my own making."

"So let us help fix it!"

Rory's broken chest swelled with pride. "I don't need help," she said haughtily, "I will raise this baby on my own, and we will be just as happy as I was with you. Goodbye." Her words were so final, so definitive, so confident and authorative – and her goodbye so sudden – that Lorelai and Luke didn't fully process what was happening until Rory was in the car, at which point Lorelai started banging on the window by the driver's seat. Screaming besides herself, looking like a crazed woman, she was either commanding Rory to stop or begging Luke to help her stop her only daughter from leaving her, an aging, ailing woman in her fifties. To Rory's greatest delight, Luke only budged but only slowly and half-heartedly. Rory sped off before either of them could do anything. She could hear her mother's wailing, reverberating in her head, long after she had pulled out of the driveway, long after she had left Stars Hollow and everything she had ever held dear behind.

Her phone suddenly started ringing. She turned it off. Her and the baby were going to be fine, she thought. No one needed to worry. She made a mental note to switch phone numbers once she found somewhere to settle down. She was excited for her old life. Living only for herself and her selfish, insatiable and ever-changing needs had exhausted her, ruined her, turning her only a shell of who she had once been. Of the daughter Lorelai had raised…, she thought, with a pang of guilt she tried to dismiss as an overreaction to her current situation.

She had to concentrate on her baby. She supposed some selflessness, a new purpose in life, and a new environment would be the change she had much needed in her life for so long. She passed the Stars Hollow sign.

 _So long, old friend,_ she thought, and sped off into the horizon.

* * *

A/N: I just finished the revival, and God... boy, to say I hooked was an understatement. I immediately had the idea and the urge to write a continuation - after all, it desperately needed some sort of continuation - and wrote this, while the idea was still fresh... I felt like the story ended on such a cliffhanger, _someone_ had to continue!

Please let me know your thoughts in a review. Keep in mind that it's been a while since I've watched Gilmore Girls (the original series), so if I forget about some details, let me know.

Have a great day guys.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Rory drove long and fast as upbeat pop music played on the car radio. She liked driving, for it was an activity that required one's full attention and therefore left little if any room for stray, intrusive thoughts. However, this occasion was different; her conscience ebbed away at her every miserable second, reminding her of what she had done, her mind tormenting her with memories of Lorelai's face and images of her crying to their neighbors, all of whom she had known since birth, who had been witness to her glorious ascent and pitiful downfall.

Her regrets were piling up by the minute, and it was increasingly difficult to focus on the interstate when she was plagued by contrition. She eventually pulled over and stopped at the nearest gas station. She knew what the right thing was to do – as always –, but her emotions were interfering with her decision-making – as always. Chewing her nails so hard it almost hurt, she finally decided on her course of action, fished out her phone from her handbag and dialed. Tapping her foot against the body of the car, chewing her nails ever more furiously, waiting for the phone to ring out, she braced herself for the storm that was Lorelai Gilmore.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up…" she muttered to herself irately as the phone rang once, twice, and then –

"Lorelai Gilmore!" It was Emily Gilmore's shrill voice that answered the receiver. "Finally, you show some sign of yourself!"

 _I've only been gone for 15 minutes,_ Rory thought irritably, but told herself it must have felt like much more to those who thought they had lost a daughter. Rory bit into her lips again. She was sick of guilt and remorse; her mother had done the same thing once.

"I'm sorry, Grandma," Rory said contritely, "I didn't mean to cause anyone any harm." The guilt she had been repressing for so long burst forward, twice as strong, in the form of tears and miserable sobbing. She hated how she sounded and how weak it made her seem, especially for a grown woman. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone," The impact of her actions finally caught up with her. "I – I'm sorry," she cried. "I just wanted to be away from everyone and everything for awhile." She began crying miserably.

Emily was silent on the other end of the receiver.

"Grandma?" Rory said, sniffling. "Are you there?"

She could almost hear the cogs in her grandmother's mind whirring. "Yes," Emily said belatedly. "Yes, I am here." Her calmness was both comforting but upsetting; Rory was relieved to not have her head yelled off, but she was afraid that perhaps this was merely the calm before the storm. "I'm sorry, Grandma," she said. "I didn't mean to disappoint anyone… even if it's all I seem to do these days –"

"Oh, don't feel so sorry for yourself," Emily snapped. It was like a slap to the face. Rory immediately straightened up in her seat. Her grandmother's calm but stern voice always commended respect. "Why did you have to run away, Rory? Why would you do this to your own mother?"

"I – I just wanted to restart my life," Rory said. She tried to hold back the tears, but they burst forward again. After awhile, she stopped making even the most minimal of efforts to remain composed and dignified. After all, it was her family; she could afford to come undone… "I just wanted to be alone – without all the stifling expectations – I just didn't want to be a failure anymore –"

"Don't be silly, Rory, no one said you're a failure,"

"Well, sure, no one _says_ it, but –"

"No one thinks it either,"

"I feel it!" Rory said, hitting the stirring wheel. Why couldn't anyone understand her? Why couldn't anyone feel even the tiniest ounce of sympathy for her plight? All her life had seemed to build up to great success… Lorelai had often called her the daughter Emily and Richard wished they had had… Why, why couldn't anyone understand that it hurt her immeasurably so to fall short of all those expectations?

"Well, yes, you feel it," Emily said. "But you're merely projecting your own insecurities onto others. We're proud of you just as you are,"

Her grandmother's cold calmness in the face of her emotional turmoil felt like a slap in the face. For the first time in her life, she experienced the kind of shame, fear, loneliness and disappointment she supposed her mother had felt prior to running away. She supposed it must have been worse tenfold at the age of 16 – at an age where nobody could say having a baby was a wise choice. For the first time in her life, she supposed she perfectly comprehended her mother's reasons for wanting to escape…

"Grandma," Rory said. "You're doing the same thing. You're doing the same thing you've been doing to Mom –"

"How dare you!?" Emily exploded. "Rory, stop this game of yours. You are acting like a petulant teenager instead of a 32-year-old woman. I expected better of you."

"Exactly!" Rory cried. "All these expectations – they're suffocating me – I could never fully live up to them! I am sick and tired of being a failure! I AM NOT THE PERSON YOU WANT ME TO BE!" The last cry came out much more hysterical than Rory had intended.

A nerve-wrecking silence followed. She could hear Emily's breathing through the phone. It was most disconcerting. Finally, Rory broke it, "I never was, Grandma. I never was…" Her voice was weak, and she began trailing off at the end. She knew her grandmother couldn't believe it; she supposed Emily was wondering whether all the past years had been pretense on her part. Rory hated to admit it, but to a certain extent, she had played a part all her life. As a child and as a teenager, she wanted to make her parents proud. She supposed that with her childish naiveté, she had hoped that if she wore the mask long enough, it would eventually become her face…

"I'll tell your mother you're OK," Emily said at last. She was taking deep breaths to calm herself. This sort of passive aggressiveness was even worse than an outright shouting match. Oh, how Rory wished Emily had reacted in any other way than this! "I'll tell her you'll call back once you've settled for the night; until then, you'll be driving. I'll tell her that you intend to keep in touch with us but for the time being, you just need a little space."

"Grandma –"

"Goodbye." Emily hung up before Rory could say another word.

Her heart constricting so hard she could barely breath, short of breath from crying so much, she stared at her phone's screen, shocked and unable to process what had just happened. Her heartbeat accelerating, she tried redialing her mother's phone number. It rang out once, twice, then someone on the other line – presumably Emily – hung up on her. She tried calling back and the same thing happened. When she tried calling back a third time, her mother's phone was already switched off.

Breathing in and out slowly to calm herself, she leaned back in the driver's seat and tried to process what had just happened.

* * *

For the upcoming few days, Rory remained on the road, stopping in every town that was worth checking out according to her internet searches, looking for affordable rent and a decent job. After the first day, the romanticism of the trip wore off, as did the feeling of utter freedom and liberation from past bonds. In the place of old responsibilities came plenty anew; in the place of liberation from old bonds came a feeling of utter loneliness. She couldn't help but think this is exactly what her mother had been faced with, only Lorelai had been 16 at the time… she had a newfound appreciation for all of Lorelai's sacrifices for her.

She called Lorelai every single day. Their first phone call hadn't gone swell, to say the least. She could hear Emily and Luke trying to placate her mother in the background, as could she hear her mother's furious breathing. "Hey, Mom," Rory said finally. "Hey?" she prompted when no answer came.

"I'm here," Lorelai said at last. "I'm not happy, but I am here."

Rory burst out in soft chuckles against her will, so great was her relief.

"Oh my God, Mom…"

Lorelai burst out crying. "Oh, Rory! Why did you have to do this to me? Why did you have to run away?"

"I'm sorry, Mom," Rory sobbed. "I don't know what got into me. I just wanted to be alone, I just wanted to start anew, I –"

"You know what?" Lorelai said. "You don't have to explain. I'm just glad you're fine. Never do this to me again."

"I won't," Rory promised, relieved. Her body felt as though reinvigorated after a long stupor. "I'll call you every day. Several times! Just please, please, let me do this my way. I promise I won't shut you out."

"I understand you need to start afresh," Lorelai said. "But why can't you do that in Stars Hollow?" Her desperation and yet-to-be-healed heartbreak shone through her voice.

Rory smiled indulgently. "Because you can't start anew in the place you've lived most of your life,"

"You can," Lorelai said, chuckling despite herself, knowing full well herself that the words that were about to come out of her mouth made even less sense to her daughter than they did to her, "You can, if you really try," she insisted. They both burst out laughing.

"You know I can't, Mom," Rory objected.

Her mother snorted with what sounded a strange mixture of sad and disbelieving. "I don't understand," Lorelai said. "What have I ever done to you to treat me this way? Was I cold? Did I hurt you somehow? What have I done…?" Her mother was breaking down, and Rory thought she could hear her sitting down on a chair. The sudden change left Rory perplexed, and out of incomprehension, she began panicking immediately,

"No, Mom! You've done nothing. Don't you understand? This is about me! This is – about how I want to start afresh – like you did –"

"Oh, don't you dare compare the two things to each other!" Lorelai's sadness turned to fiery rage. "I was – I was –" Rory could hear her start walking away. "I was pushed out of that house," she hissed. "And I was 16 – all teenagers want to run away! You're 32. Stop using my teenage mistakes to blanket your adult ones."

"Mom, I am not –"

"If you wanted to move away, why didn't you just tell me? Huh? Forgive me if I don't buy that this isn't some sort of vendetta of yours against me, or whoever else you're blaming for your life now –"

"Mom, I am not blaming anyone."

"Oh, so what was it about those stifling expectations you told _my mother_ about?" Her voice lowered to a venomous hiss, and that is when Rory decided to hang up. She shut her phone off for the rest of the day. She would try calling back later that night, only for Emily to pick up, telling her Lorelai was busy. Then, she tried calling Luke, who said Lorelai didn't want to talk to her now, and would call her back when she did. Rory nevertheless tried calling at least once every single day, but to no avail. Eventually, she gave up.

After a week of searching, she finally found both affordable rent and a decent-paying job in a town called New Hope in the state of Pennsylvania. After days of no contact (not that she hadn't tried contacting her so-called family), Rory began calling her mother incessantly, determined not to give up until she finally talked to her mother, determined to share the good news with her mother and best friend, despite the rocky phase they were currently going through. Now, she could give her mother a permanent address, invite her to visit in a few weeks' time, and resume the life they had had before all the madness and chaos she had caused –

Finally, after the umpteenth attempt, Lorelai answered.

"Yes, Rory?" her voice was as chilling as a December blizzard. Rory's excitement duly faded.

"I – I was just –" Rory's voice faltered. Then she was forced to wonder why exactly she was on the defensive here when she had tried everything to stay in touch with her old family and friends; everyone else had picked up but her own mother, for God's sake! "Well, Mom, nice to hear your voice too."

"Yes, yes," Lorelai said. "What is it that you want?"

Rory's heart skipped a beat. It was as though all happiness had suddenly left her body, giving way not only to immense sadness but uncontrollable anger as well. "What do you mean what is it that I want!? Mom, I got a job! And a new place to rent! Aren't you happy?"

"Not exactly thrilled," Lorelai said. "But congratulations, I guess."

"You _guess_?!"

"Look, Rory," Lorelai said. "I am glad you have all that you wanted. I'm glad you have a new life."

"Mom –"

"But stop," Lorelai said snappishly, though not without a trace of sadness in that cold, cold voice. "Let me say my piece."

"OK… sorry,"

"Thank you," Lorelai said, but the faux politeness felt mocking. "I just wanted to say that I am glad – I am glad you have all that you want. But you have trampled over my happiness over and over again. I cannot believe your selfishness for ruining the day of my wedding by breaking this news, and then running away the next. Do you have any idea what people are saying about you in Stars Hollow? Can you imagine how they're looking at me? Do you know how it feels to be the topic of conversation in every conversation people have in the town you've lived most of your life in? Do you know what it feels like for your own daughter to abandon you right after you've thought you finally got your happy ending?"

"I – I –" Rory desperately wanted to say something, but nothing came to her mind.

"Don't bother, Rory. I've dedicated my entire life to you, and I do not regret a second of it, even if you blame me."

"I do not –"

"Regardless of whether you do or not, I regret the person you've become. You broke my heart, Rory, goddammit! You humiliated me in front of everyone and ruined my wedding and abandoned me the following morning. I don't know if I want to have anything left to do with you. I'm really sorry, Rory."

"Mom –"

"I'll call you when I'm ready to talk to you again, kid. I am not mad at you. I just need some time to think… to process everything," her mother's voice became tearful towards the end, making Rory's chest constrict with guilt.

"Mom, please, I –"

"Don't," Lorelai said, her soft voice commanding authority. "Goodbye, kid."

Rory's breathing accelerated. "Goodbye, Mom."

She knew there was nothing else to say.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for all your reviews, positive or otherwise. I really appreciate all sorts of feedback and thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I am happy if my story manages to evoke emotions in someone, even if it's not necessarily positive.

You might argue with my characterization of Lorelai and Rory, and perhaps my interpretation of them doesn't agree with how you perceive the characters. In my interpreation of events, Rory feels like she disappointed everyone (most of all herself), and she can't live with the shame. She wants to start anew, even if it's at the expense of others. But her good nature doesn't allow for her to go on like this for long and the temporary insanity passes. However, Lorelai feels indescribably betrayed and hurt by her daughter's actions, and becomes another person as a result. In my opinion, extreme emotions can change a person, for better or for worse. This pregnancy is really going to put mother and daughter's relationship to the test!

I'm planning for the story to take up about a decade after the events in this one. It would be too long to describe, in great detail, the events in every single year of Rory's life until her daughter grows up. You're going to find out more about the job and New Hope, Penn. in the next chapter!

I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Cheers!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 _16 years later..._

Lily Hope Gilmore was the complete opposite of what her mother had intended her to be. She smoked, she drank, she stayed out late and disobeyed her maternal authority at every turn. It was like the sins against her own mother had come back to haunt her in the most insidious possible way: through her daughter.

Lily was everything that Rory had understood Lorelai to be at the same age. And while on her worst nights she truly thought of this novel development as karma, in her more rational hours she knew it was simply genetics, as Lily had inherited her father's temperament. The fact that Logan's and Lorelai's personalities were so similar was merely an inexplicable twist of fate. Other than that, Lily's similarities with Lorelai ended with the former inheriting the latter's luxurious dark mane of hair, which Rory had always envied growing up. As a mother, she wanted her children to have a life better than hers had been, and was glad that her daughter had turned out (in her opinion) tenfold more beautiful than she had ever been.

Lily's life also was easier than hers in a lot of aspects, which is why, Rory assumed, it was so easy for her to go downhill. Her father supplied her with all the money and more that a small Eastern European country would ever need, for one; second of all, Lily was so naturally talented that she hadn't had to work for anything. Her excellent grades came as effortlessly as the attention of boys. Lily was the embodiment of the rich girl stereotype who didn't know strife so she invented some in her life to make it appear meaningful in Rory's opinion.

On her rare visits with her father, Lily came home happier than ever. Lily and Logan got along effortlessly, while Rory and Lily could barely go a day without arguing. It was sad, and not to mention unfair, that Rory had raised their child alone and she got no thanks from her child, while the absentee father got all the kid's admiration and love. Rory loved her child more than she loved life itself, and so she persevered, hoping this was just a bad teenage phase and they would one day go back to getting along as well as they had before Lily hit puberty and all hell broke loose. During the former's childhood, their relationship had been better than even hers had been with Lorelai.

At 46, she was still trying to figure out life and quite frankly, it felt pathetic and like the journey through hell would never end. And while there was a plethora of choices she regretted making, there was one seemingly bad choice she would never want to go back on, and that was having Rory. She had been drifting aimlessly like a leaf in the wind before Lily came along and gave her life meaning again. Motherhood was the single best thing to ever happen to her.

After Lily's birth – though not without tremendous effort on her part – her life fell together. She became the head of the _New Hope Gazette_ , a daily newspaper that was considerably more reputable than its Stars Hollow counterpart. Utilizing everything she had ever learned at Yale, she worked for long, long hours every day to make it a newspaper worth buying. Eventually, sales began to skyrocket and she could finally move out of the two-room apartment (the only one she had been originally able to rent) into a family house.

Logan always insisted that she move into one of his family's many estates and manors, but Rory had declined each and every time. She wanted to be a working woman who forged her own destiny, and not a trophy wife (or even worse, lover) whose fate depended on a man. If she didn't become a multimillionaire, she did not care: she wanted to see how much she was worth alone, without any external help.

Then came the big break, after many years of ceaseless work in journalism: an offer at _Condé Nast_. That was possibly the first and worst mistake she had made in Lily's upbringing, and it was all the worse because she had made it knowingly: she accepted the offer, along with the possibility of jeopardizing her relationship with her daughter in favor of her work. After moving to the Big Apple, Rory consecrated much of her time to ascending the social echelon. She had foolishly thought herself capable of somehow juggling both motherhood and work life, and in retrospect, that seemed like a gross overestimation of her powers.

The fulfillment of her lifelong dream marked the beginning of her problems with Lily. Lily hated feeling like she came second after her mother's work life, and acted so outrageously that within months, each nanny so far had resigned. Lily also blamed her for the bullying that had initially ensued at her new school, Constance Billard, and – instead of reconciling with her mother once that issue was resolved – went on to purposefully defying her mother's authority to get back at all her real or perceived slights.

Lily became the stereotype of the overly self-righteous daughter who lacked any sense of gratitude for all the riches bestowed upon her by her parents, much like her father and his friends had been at that age. Rory wondered briefly whether that meant that she had become the stereotypical Upper East Side working parent who provided their own child with all the money but none of the love the child required for healthy growth. She quickly stifled the thought, but it lingered in the back of her mind for weeks, until she finally resolved herself to swallowing her pride and made the call she had been both desperately waiting for and dreading ever since she had left her mother's house: she called Lorelai (who presumably only answered the phone because she didn't recognize the number.)

"Hello?" her mother's inquisitorial tone confirmed Rory's aforementioned suspicions. "Who's this?"

Rory smirked slightly, but not without a bitter taste in her mouth. "It's me, Mom," Lorelai's barely audible gasp was heard on the other line. Quickly, before her mother could hang up, Rory said in the most heartbreaking tone she could muster, "I need your help."

Weeks later, Lily was on a train to Stars Hollow.

Lily decided to get back at her mother after arrival in the only way she knew how: getting along with her grandmother and becoming the poster child for abstinence (of all kinds.) Or at least, keeping up the pretense.

After Lily's first day there, Lorelai and Rory talked on the phone, as the former had promised to provide the latter with daily updates.

"I don't know, Rory," Lorelai said, and for the first time in years there was no animosity in her voice. Her heart had melted upon seeing the grandchild she had been kept from – through much fault of her own – for almost two decades to date. "She seems fine here. She did the dishes, and then went to read in her room just like you did after every day… she got your old room, by the way. She loves it." There was an excited edge to her voice, as though Lily's arrival had given her hope for a new beginning like it had given Rory back in the day.

"M-hmm," Rory said. "She's got you wrapped around her little finger already, hasn't she, Mom?" The name felt alien on her lips after so many years of not using it, and it stunned the both of them into a momentary silence. Lorelai resumed the conversation, sounding slightly perturbed, and Rory vowed never to utter the word again.

"Yes, she has, actually," Lorelai said snappishly, picking up on the insinuation that this was merely a pretense on Lily's part. "Come on, Rory. Just because she didn't get along with you doesn't mean she won't get along with us."

"Yea, yea," Rory said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm sure it's all my fault."

"Well, I never said that," Lorelai said, aghast, but it didn't sound sincere. "But she seems to feel that way, yeah."

A vein began throbbing in Rory's forehead. "Uh-huh," she said. She suddenly wanted to wrap this conversation up as soon as possible. She still had some work to do. "Alright, Mom. Tell me if anything happens. If there's any emergency, call me, OK? If she misses me or needs me or just wants to talk to me, tell her she's free to talk to me anytime, alright?"

"Why don't you tell her that yourself, Rory?" Lorelai asked.

"Well –" Rory's mother suddenly felt dry. "She won't pick up the phone." She admitted quietly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that?"

"She won't pick up the phone!" Rory snapped loudly, her fists clenching on their own accord. She was hating this situation more and more with each second. "There, I said it. I hope you're happy now. She won't pick up the phone and she refuses to speak to me. I hope you can instill some sense into her, I swear –"

"Now, now," Lorelai said. "It's best if you calm down before you say anything you might regret. I'm sure you love that daughter of yours, she is just going through a hard time."

" _She_ is!?"

"Yes, she is, Rory. Or maybe you're just so used to me putting your needs before mine that it became your modus operandi. But a child needs both parents, or at least the full devotion of one if the other one is out of the picture. In your case, both of you are out of the picture. Of course she's having problems; she's all alone in the world and severely lacks guidance. Luckily, Luke and I have more than enough time to take care of her. You just concentrate on your career."

"Mom, it's not that simple –" Rory was about to go into a tirade about how she had to gain financial independence because she was disgusted herself for being someone's lover for so long, and how it felt so good to finally accomplish all her dreams, how her mother seriously couldn't have expected her to give Rory up her adoption or leave her by the wayside or any of the other ridiculous options her mother used to rant to her about, and that she couldn't seriously imply that it would have been better for her to be someone's mistress as long as she remained a mother first – but her mother cut her short before she could even begin.

"Now, it's late, first of all, and second of all, if we had this conversation again I'm afraid we'd just stop speaking," Lorelai said. Rory was too furious to say anything, so her mother continued, "I'm glad you sent her over here, Rory. I'm really glad. Let's promise each other that Lily won't suffer for any of our personal disagreements, OK? She deserves better than that."

Common sense seemed to wash over Rory and she suddenly calmed down. "Of course. I wasn't about to." And she really hadn't been. She had just let her emotions get the better of her. She could hear her mother smiling at the other end of the line. To her, this reunion must have been the fulfillment of repressed yearnings.

"Call me again tomorrow, OK?" Rory said after a short pause, not knowing how to deal with talking to her mother after nearly two decades of absence. It felt perturbing to suddenly be forced to be so close again despite all the unresolved conflicts between the two of them. But Lily deserved better. Maybe she had been a bad mother, despite her best intentions, and she wanted to right that. "Tell Lily I love her."

"M-hmm," Lorelai said, and from her tone Rory already knew she wasn't about to, probably thinking it would do more harm than good. "I'll tell her you love her. Good night."

"Night."

And they hung up.

* * *

A/N: Thank you very much for reading! Please let me know your thoughts in a review below!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Oh, hey, Lily, would you mind getting me breakfast from Tiffany's?" Lorelai piped up the minute Lily stepped out of Rory's old room.

Fortunately, Lily's back was turned to Lorelai so her grandmother didn't see her scowl in repressed anger. It had only been a day, but she was already tired of playing the perfect daughter. The thought that her mother had once been like this – on her own volition, with no ulterior motives, none the less – sickened her and made her question whether they were truly related at all.

"Tiffany's?" Luke asked, outraged, looking up from his newspaper suddenly. "Come on, Lorelai! You have the owner of Luke's here to make your food, and you choose to get take out from _Tiffany's_?" His voice was laced with disgust when he uttered the diner – and diner owner's – name.

Lorelai smiled coyly. She retained her youthful, coquettish charm even into old age. "Well, you know me, I like variety," she said teasingly.

"Sure," Lily interrupted, not particularly in the mood for their banter. "Can I get you guys anything else? Luke?" she said, trying to appear innocent, even though she only said it to annoy him. She had to let the seam out somehow, but as she had an appearance to maintain, she was forced to go about it smartly.

Lorelai laughed, and Luke shot her a dirty look. Lily forced herself to laugh to soften the blow of her words.

"No, I'll make my own breakfast," Luke said gruffly, and went back to his newspaper, opening it and holding it so it hid his entire face.

Lorelai giggled to herself, and then motioned for Lily to go. Feeling like a maid, fuming inside, Lily started walking towards the door when Lorelai yelled a thank you after her. She sounded very sincere, but it didn't make the situation any less humiliating. This was a task she was used to being carried out by the personnel. Was this how normal people lived? If so, it was distasteful. She didn't like it one bit. Stars Hollow was like her own personal purgatory. The only thing that made it slightly better was that Lorelai was considerably more fun than her mother.

As it was, because she had never met them before, it felt like she was living in the house of two strangers as opposed to her own flesh and blood. God, her mother really knew how to make her life hell, didn't she? Just when she had gotten the hang of Constance Billard, when she was starting to fit in and have fun and develop closer friendships with her classmates… it was like her mother was just waiting for her to get settled and comfortable, only to rip her out of the environment she had finally gotten used to in the most unexpected moment. It felt like a stab in the back, and Lily wasn't ready to forgive just yet – or maybe ever.

She had already gotten used to living without love, even the slightest semblance of it. She supposed it was the price you had to pay for having riches beyond measure, and had accepted her fate. Why, oh why did she have to be ripped out of her life in New York to be relocated in a town behind God's back where everything was strange and unfamiliar, including the people she was living with?

While as a child she had often fantasized about a simple life filled with love instead of an extravagant one filled with everything but love, but the reality of middle class life (or to her, poor life) didn't tickle her fancy as a teenager.

* * *

Tiffany's, the diner, was exactly the same (according to Luke) as it had been in his day, the only difference being the menu and the sign on the top. The owner was supposedly saving up to renovate, because buying Luke out had cost her almost all her savings.

Meanwhile, Luke was now comfortably living off his pension and doing contracting jobs around town. He said that because there was a great shortage of contractors in the area, he got asked to do jobs in the wealthier areas around Stars Hollow as well, in which cases he had no real qualms about over-charging just a tiny bit (or even a little bigger bit…) He also helped out at the Dragonfly Inn in any way he could, which Lorelai still ran. Older than old, but still tough as nails, Lily thought, inspired by Lorelai in a way that she had never been by her mother.

Not to mention, that despite all their work, they still had time for her, which was unfamiliar to Lily and, to be frank, even a bit perturbing. She was used to being unchaperoned and told to fend for herself (in fact, the latter was the only advice she thought she had ever gotten.)

To be paid attention to, to be cherished, even to be loved was so unfamiliar it had the ability to scare her. She instinctively wanted to run away from it; she had no idea how to respond to such a positive emotion. Not to mention, she didn't trust it would last; periods of peace between her and her mother, for example, were as short-lived as they were few and far between. She had had so many bad experiences in the area that she was quite simply tired of getting her hopes up only to be let down and hurt again each and every time, she had simply developed this self-defense mechanism. Perhaps it wasn't healthy, but this way she found it was easier to survive.

The owner of Tiffany's was a woman named Tiffany Pattinson, though she insisted everyone call her Tiff, Tiffany, or if they wanted to be particularly formal, Ms. Tiffany. She was chubby with thick, dark red hair and brown eyes that always sparkled with mischief despite her age. Ms. Tiffany was a failed talent agent from New York who was absolutely awed by Lily's appearance, which the latter found more disturbing than flattering. Lorelai had told her she was overly accommodating with everyone and to not let it disturb her or get to her head. She called everyone…

"The beauty of Stars Hollow!" Ms. Tiffany cried upon seeing the sixteen-year old enter. Lily smiled uncomfortably as the diner's guests glanced in her direction. She honestly wished she could just bolt.

"Hey, Ms. Tiffany," she said through gritted teeth. "I just came to get breakfast for Grandma," she added, hoping to speed up this tedious interaction.

"Of course my dear, of course," the diner owner said. "Come sit at the counter." Lily did as she was told. With Ms. Tiffany, there were no requests, as she had come to learn, just sugar-coated commands. "Here, have a coffee on the house." But they weren't all so bad. "You look so tired, darling! No teenager should be up at 8:30 on a Saturday. Tell Lorelai I said it's child abuse, OK?" she jibed, and Lily burst out laughing.

"I'll tell her that," she promised, and they both laughed, imaging the situation. Then she gave Ms. Tiffany her own and her grandmother's orders, and she decided to get Luke something to eat as well as a courtesy call. She decided she and Lorelai would eat that too if Luke didn't end up wanting it. She just didn't want him to feel left out.

"So, anyway, kid," Ms. Tiffany said after she gave her orders to her chef. By the way, she could not cook. "So how's Grandma and Luke? Is everything OK? They haven't been around here lately."

"Yes, Ms. Tiffany, everything's perfect," Lily said, nodding, smiling. "I think they're like this one in a million couple, you know? They still act like newlyweds. It's really inspiring, actually,"

"Oh," Ms. Tiffany said disappointedly, her face dropping. "Anyway, tell them I hope to see them around!" The smile was back on her face. Lily couldn't tell whether it was fake or genuine. Ms. Tiffany was hard to figure out. But – gossipmonger or not – she made great coffee.

"Not to mention," Ms. Tiffany said, the mischievous twinkle back in her dark eyes. "If you three come around in the afternoon, you might just get lucky,"

Oh, God. "Why?" she asked, eyes widening in surprise. No adult had ever used the phrase 'get lucky' on her, and it felt weird.

"Well," Ms. Tiffany said, milking the moment. "I only hired the most handsome boy to come work here in the afternoons," she said. "He's training to become a cook. Wants to be a Michelin-star chef!" she said, and laughed as though that was a ludicrous concept. Lily hated to be mean, but to imagine a Stars Hollow resident becoming a world famous chef was a bit of a stretch even for her. "Well, who knows? Maybe it will be so," Ms. Tiffany insisted, and Lily quickly made a mental note to be on guard at all times. Otherwise, her large blue eyes and her expressive features will betray her true feelings each and every time. God, she was starting to feel like a sociopath.

"Sure, it might," Lily said, smiling.

"Anyway," Ms. Tiffany said, sensing Lily's lack of enthusiasm. "Just a suggestion. He also works here as a waiter – not just a chef – because he needs the money. Bless his heart, his family are very poor."

God, she was a gossipmonger. But her coffee was great, Lily thought, sipping from it, having nearly finished it all.

"Well, anyway," Ms. Tiffany said. She seemed to desperately loathe silences and wanted to avoid them at all costs. "Sorry if I was inappropriate. I am constantly told I am being inappropriate –" she made a great show of rolling her eyes to indicate just what she thought about these opinions, "but I hope you didn't take it that way,"

"No, no, absolutely not," Lily said. "You were just trying to help out a fellow woman,"

"Exactly!" Ms. Tiffany said zealously, glad to be understood.

The chef called out that her orders were ready. Ms. Tiffany seemed to be annoyed at the interruption, but took the packaged food from him, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Lily.

"Promise me you'll come again," Ms. Tiffany said. "You're the most exciting person to talk to, even though you're only just 16,"

"What do you mean, just 16?" Lily said. She was immediately irritated by the notion that she was somehow less mature than adults – as illogical as that was – like all teenagers. She felt herself to be smarter than her mother, and by extension, most adults.

"Well, 16 is just a child, my dear," Ms. Tiffany said, and she sounded apologetic, as though she knew this was going to hurt Lily's sensibilities. Most adults didn't seem to care about hurting a teenager's feelings when expressing such notions. Lily made a mental note of this. She made a mental note of everything; she had been hurt so many times due to naiveté and obliviousness, she had long ago vowed to do everything against being damaged the same way. "No offense to you, because you're mature enough, but you're still just 16. In my opinion, people don't become adults until they're 21. But that's just my personal opinion," she added as a way to soften the potential impact of her words.

Because it was worded so politely, Lily couldn't take it to heart. "Oh, no. I get it. Maybe you're right." She said. She didn't think so, but, after all, she wasn't infallible either.

"Anyway," Ms. Tiffany proceeded, "Just drop by later with your parents. Or any afternoon. He usually takes afternoon shifts because of school and his other job –"

"Wait, who?"

Ms. Tiffany seemed exasperated. "The boy I told you about!" she snapped. "Just come again, won't you? Bring your parents with you. I just love them to bits." Lily couldn't decide whether this was some sort of show biz talk from her days as a talent agent, a desperate plea for more costumers (though this Lily doubted because the diner was full), or whether she was simply weird like that. Either way, she was the most colorful and entertaining person she had so far met in Stars Hollow.

"Will do," Lily said, not wanting to prolong this conversation. Ms. Tiffany was like the weather in April: sunny with a cool breeze, then drizzling rain the next. She wasn't completely normal, but she wasn't ill-natured at the least. "Bye, Ms. Tifanny. Thanks for the coffee!"

Stepping out of the diner, Lily immediately fell into deep thought. She began lamenting her situation – as she often did, having no one but herself to discuss it with. Then suddenly, a boy bumped into her so hard she dropped her bags. "Ow!" she exclaimed angrily, then crouched down to pick up her food.

"Oh my _God,_ I am so sorry," the boy said apologetically, noticing the mess unintentionally made. "So sorry. I was just rushing – I totally forgot I have a morning shift at Tiffany's – and – " he rambled on as he bent down to help her get her backs. Consumed by irritation, Lily didn't even pay much attention to him until he said he worked at the diner she had just exited.

"Tiffany's?" she asked curiously as she stood up. The brown-haired boy handed her the bags he had picked up. "Don't worry," she said, bursting into a grin. "I think she forgot you had a morning shift too,"

Lily appraised the boy in front of her. He was tall – she barely reached up to his shoulders – and lean, with light brown hair and bright green eyes. Lily bit her lower lip hard, hoping the pain would help refocus her wandering attention.

"Really?" the boy asked. "How do you know?"

"Oh, you know how she is," Lily said, forcing a laugh, not about to detail Ms. Tiffany's attempts at match-making. She hated to admit it, but Ms. Tiffany had been right: this boy really was very much to her liking. If this was the boy she had been talking about. But it probably was, given that due to her limited funds Ms. Tiffany couldn't afford that much help in the diner.

"Yeah, I know," the boy admitted, laughing. They shared an understanding of the diner owner's craziness without actually having to say it out loud. They stared at each other for a few moments – it wasn't an uncomfortable silence, per se, but they both felt that they should somehow resume the conversation.

"I… uh…" Lily began, but no acceptable conversation topic came to mind.

"So," the boy said, and they both burst out laughing at their mutual inability to be interesting. He continued with the most basic line that Lily blamed herself for not coming up with: "I'm James Forrester What's your name?"

"Lily Gilmore," she said, smiling, enchanted. James Forrester. What a great name.

James's smile mirrored her own. Suddenly, breaking the otherwise romantic moment, incessant rapping was heard. They simultaneously turned in the direction of the disturbance, only to discover that it was the diner owner herself making the ruckus. Tiffany then motioned for James to hurry up and begin his shift. James nodded, yelled 'One minute!' and turned back to Lily.

"Seems like she remembered when you promised to start your shift," she said. She seemed to have found her voice again.

"My presence must have jogged her memory," James said with a wide grin.

The rapping intensified. Overtaken by impatience, Tiffany began yelling too. The shrill sound made Lily wince.

"Sorry, duty calls," James said, and they both chuckled. "So… it was nice meeting you, Lily Gilmore. I hope to see you around." He said. "Oh, and sorry about your bags again,"

"No, it's OK, they were packaged well. No harm done," Lily replied with a wide, reassuring smile.

"JAMES!" Tiffany's cry was almost making the windows of her diner shake. "COME ON NOW! FLIRTING CAN WAIT!"

Lily blushed and James said, looking mildly uncomfortable, "Gotta go," he said. "See you!"

"See ya!"

And then he sped off to start his shift. The rapping and the yelling stopped. Lily's ears rang for a few moments after the incident. Then she forced herself to tear her gaze away from the window, through which he saw Tiffany giving a lecture to her personnel.

As she started walking the way home, a small but genuine smile spread across her lips, and it lasted all the way home.

* * *

A/N: So, what do you think? Reviews are love.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

The next few days sped by as if in a hurry. Luke taught her how to cook and even how to fix things around the house; initially he hadn't thought of introducing her to the world of contracting, but Lily was particularly interested, much to her grandfather's delight. Lily still hadn't figured out what to call him; in the end, she concluded there was no word in the English language to adequately describe what he was to her. A step-godfather? Did he even qualify as a relative at all, or was he just a stranger fucking Grandma? As crude as that was, that was just the way she thought. In the end, she decided to simply refer to him as her grandpa in her head. He was the closest she was going to get to one anyway, she supposed.

Hanging out with Luke was the fun part of her stay, or rather banishment to Stars Hollow. Lorelai only ever sent her on errands (as if she were some sort of Ethiopian import slave), and incessantly tried to build a relationship Lily neither wanted nor was ready for. She dreaded closeness as much as she longed for it. However, Lorelai wasn't necessarily her first choice of confidante. It made sense, in theory, to trust her, because they were family… but if her relationship with her mother was any indication, blood wasn't everything. Ultimately, what tipped the balance in favor of shutting her grandmother out was that Lorelai gave daily updates to her mother about her well-being. They tried to keep it quiet – always after she retired to her room to "sleep" – but sometimes these conversations got pretty heated and Lily woke up to it.

Ever since then, she had been pretending to go to sleep while in fact she was staying up to eavesdrop on their conversations. Nothing of much interest was ever said; sometimes, she even fell asleep before they even finished their phone call. Listening in on their conversations put her to sleep quicker than NyQuil, or reading _Moby Dick._ However, she knew that if she shut her grandmother out, she would shut her mother out too, and not being able to extract private information out of Lorelai would drive Rory crazy, she knew.

Thus, she decided not to let her grandmother in, not through any fault of her own but rather as a petty vendetta against her mother, whom she refused to forgive. Little did she know that such pettiness and pride were dangerous vices to indulge in when one possessed such a fundamental lack of experience and consequently a fundamental lack of knowledge of how the world and relationships work; shutting her grandmother out hurt her too, and even though she thought she was doing herself a favor, in the long-run, it wouldn't benefit her as much as she thought it did temporarily.

Even though she had achieved the objective of driving her mother crazy (though in Lily's opinion, Rory didn't need much help with that…), she felt lonely, shutting everybody out. Sure, there were her old school friends to talk to, but it wasn't quite that simple; first of all, communication via the Internet in no way made up for a lack of real life interaction with her friends. It did not satisfy her need for companionship in any way.

Not to mention, her friendships with her _old_ classmates (it still hurt to acknowledge this) were rather shallow. Partially because she had been ripped out of the school before they could deepen, and partially because despite popular misbelief of young people being innocent and naïve and sweet, her old classmates had been anything but. She had to travel a long and strenuous journey from being the social outcast to becoming one of the most popular girls in school… the results of such tremendous effort, however, were in danger of being jeopardized by her mother's _stupid_ decision to move her from the greatest city in the US – if not the entire world – to this _dump_.

Gossip about her was rampant already; people were saying that her mother had sent her away because she was insufferable, and/or because she was in the way of her mother's and her boyfriend's relationship; and that now she was living on a farm behind God's back (which was the rich city kid's vision of a small Pennsylvanian town) where she had to milk cows and live out other similarly freaky and nightmarish scenarios. Basically, because she was gone and not there to defend herself, people felt they could slander her name all they liked without consequences. Her friends told her that of course they defended her, but because many of these kids had been her previous bullies, she had her doubts. It looked like everything she had worked for was slowly but surely going up in flames, and she would soon (in 7 days exactly) be forced to start completely anew and build everything up from zilch like she had had done almost every two years thanks to her mother's constant moving around.

She tried to see it from her mother's perspective and be grateful for all the riches her mother provided her with. But was money really worth more than love? She could never find it in herself to revel in material possessions and simply not care about the lack of love she experienced. Her mother may even have given her love in her own personal way, but Lily honestly never felt it and doubted that was all her fault. In the end, she concluded money did not trump love, and her mother couldn't possibly think so either, because her mother had left her father because he didn't treat her right (even if he did love her in his own way) despite all the money and gifts he kept showering her with.

No, she thought, only a truly shallow person would be satisfied with money au lieu of love. Expecting her – or any kid in similar financial situations – to just not care about not getting love and attention from her parents (as poorer kids her age often just told her to suck it up and be just happy for the money her family had) was not only illogical but downright cruel.

She stood by her opinion. Money would never mean more to her than love.

* * *

The last days before school were spent shopping for school supplies. Her grandparents insisted on driving all the way to Hartford for her, where first they would buy her new school uniform (she missed the old one already) and then shop for notebooks and stationery in the Hartford Mall. Lorelai told her with a wink that they sold much cuter school supplies there. The fitting went fine, even though she could no longer hold in the way she was feeling. She wasn't much for emotional restraint, and she hadn't often practiced it in the past. After a life of absolutely no emotional restraint, for a week long she exercised total emotional restraint and for obvious reasons it was slowly beginning to take its toll on her. Trying on new shopping uniforms was the last drop that made the water in the metaphorical cup overflow. She didn't say anything; she didn't want to talk about it. She just sighed loudly as she examined herself in her new uniform, staring at her reflection but wistfully reminiscing about what the start of school would be like back in New York.

She supposed she could have taken the move as a new opportunity, but she was tired of being ripped out of environments just when she was about to get used to one almost every two years. At least moves previously had an explanation: her mother's job had required them to move. This time, there was no logical reason. Rory had simply told her they don't get along, her school friends are a bad influence and she thought a change of scene would do her some good. Having been absent most of her life and having been raised solely by nannies, Lily didn't think she had the right to make that call. She was, in all senses of the word, parentless. Her father lived on another continent, and even though they lived in the same house with her mother they couldn't have been farther apart. Mostly, she did not see her and when she did, she usually wished she hadn't.

Then they moved on to notebook shopping. Lily never voiced her feelings out loud, but her grandparents finally caught on and it was impossible to wipe those concerned looks off their faces no matter what she said or did. Lily put on her best cheery act, but all attempts to assuage Luke and Lorelai's fears proved futile. They only ever showed genuine emotion (except those disingenuous smiles they kept shooting her as though to reassure her of their lack of disbelief towards her attitude) when during notebook-shopping, she instinctively and immediately threw the cheapest notebooks and pens she could find into their shopping cart. Lorelai and Luke exchanged curious glances.

"Um… honey, are you sure those are the notebooks you want?" Lorelai asked, touching her shoulder gently. Lily looked up at her, and for the umpteenth time she realized their eyes were the exact same shape and color.

"Yeah," she said, having been trained to say this. "Why, what's wrong with them?" She really didn't understand. Wouldn't most people have been happy for the reduction of their expenses?

"Honey… We can afford the prettier ones too, if that's what you want," Lorelai said gently, drawing her aside and looking her straight in the eye. The maternal gesture, their shared features – physical as well as personality-wise – lulled her into a sense of security, and the words slipped out before she could realize what she was saying, "Oh, alright then. It's just that Mom never lets me buy any of the nicer ones."

She clasped her hands on her mouth immediately after she realized what she was saying. She knew this would shock and perhaps even upset Lorelai, and was painfully aware of the shitstorm (in her own words) that was about to follow if her grandmother ever mentioned this to her mother. Her mother didn't like letting others in on her failings as a parent. Even to Lily, she constantly insisted she was a good mother, and that the problem was with Lily, not her. These instances, Lily wasn't sure whom she was trying to convince: her daughter or herself.

"What? Why wouldn't she?"

Lily shrugged and contemplated her answer for a few minutes, her lips pursed. She finally decided there was no going back now, and she felt a malicious tingle in her chest as she imagined Lorelai telling her mother off. She suppressed a smirk (which she felt guilty for), and said, in her most innocent voice, "Well, she said I was spoiled and since we bought new notebooks every year, we didn't need to buy the most expensive ones."

Looking into her grandmother's eyes, she realized the same thoughts were flitting across her mind as they had been her own when her mother had explained this new, wonderful parenting tactic to her for the first time. "But… that's insane. Your mother employs a chef, a chauffeur and a maid. Are notebooks really the expenses she wants to cut down on? You must be kidding me."

"Ask her," Lily said, quelling the wave of annoyance threatening to wash over her. "She'll be delighted to tell you how she read all about it in some parenting book that the _New York Times_ critics have been putting on some sort of pedestal,"

"Oh, my God," Lorelai said. Up until that moment, she hadn't fully grasped the gravity of the issues between her daughter and granddaughter. Now, with Lily letting her in – reluctantly or not –, she was beginning to get a clearer picture and she didn't like what she was seeing.

"Here," Lorelai said, and threw the notebook with the prettiest cover she could find in the vicinity into their shopping basket. Lily didn't particularly like it – she found it too pink – but burst into a wide grin nonetheless, appreciating in the gesture, reveling in her newfound companionship. She had her doubts up until that point whether Lorelai would take her side against her own daughter when they had just so soon reconciled, but she had underestimated her grandmother's backbone.

"And you know, if it were just stationery…" Lily said, faking a sob.

She wanted to get the most out of this opportunity to get back at her mother. She was long over the issues she was now bringing up, and perhaps they never hurt as much as it had ignited her righteous anger over the morality – or rather lack thereof – of her mother's actions. But she wanted to get back at her mother for 16 years of pain, and she was willing to bend her own morals slightly in favor of the greater good: revenge, and justice. Then, in the last moment, she decided against it. If she ever won a moral fight against her mother, she didn't want to do it by lying.

Lorelai prodded her for more information, but for a long time, she remained quiet and sullen as ever. Finally, after much nagging, she opened her mouth to divert the conversation, but all that came out was, "She told me that my bullying was my fault because I wasn't strong enough, and the bullies sensed it, so really it was my fault because I wasn't strong enough – " And she burst out crying.

Years of repressed emotions burst forth and tears began streaming down her face. She was too overwhelmed with pain to be really embarrassed about coming undone at the stationer's. She choked out a few apologies between sobs that made her chest constrict, mostly for embarrassing her grandparents by this improper, public display of emotions, but Lorelai merely shushed her and enveloped her in a warm, reassuring embrace until she calmed down a little. Luke stood on the sidelines, looking uncomfortable and concerned simultaneously, wanting to do something but not knowing what.

After Lily calmed down a little, Lorelai instructed Luke to stand in line to buy the notebooks they had already picked out; it was as good a reason as any to give some privacy to the two members of the household that had actual blood relation uniting them as opposed to mere choice.

After Lily managed to recompose herself, they bought her some ice-cream to cheer her up; initially, Lily had resisted, insisting she was fine, but Lorelai had too much experience with teenagers to actually believe this. She also acknowledged that Lily was the type of kid who hated expressing her emotions and out of whom it had to be forced out.

They sat down in the small park behind the mall, and Lily – occasionally bursting into sobs and having to blow her nose – recounted much of her never previously discussed woes. How her mother was never there, how she always put her job first and expected her daughter to be grateful for the money she was making them and the opportunities it provided when all she wanted was a little love, and how she called her shallow and spoiled when eventually all she pretended to care about (in front of her mother, at least) were clothes and other material possessions. How they moved every two years and how it made her life hell. How her mother constantly blamed her for others treating her wrong, for example when she was bullied in school or when her boyfriend of two months cheated on her. (Apparently, that had been her fault for being too naïve.) Many, other such tales followed and individually perhaps they weren't much to an adult, but Lorelai remembered her own childhood all too vividly to be able to tell her granddaughter what everyone else seemed to be telling her: "Your mother is just doing it for you. Be grateful." Because she knew full well that Rory wasn't doing this to make Lily's life better but to further her own glory. If Rory had truly cared about Lily, she would have devoted more time to her, not ran away from their problems and buried herself in even more work.

What was perhaps the worst – and most repulsive of all – was Rory putting all the blame on her daughter for everything, including their constantly deteriorating relationship. While Rory's other faults were plenty and dire, Lorelai thought her pride to be the worst of them all, as it seemed to be the source of all her other sins. To blame a kid…! Surely, that was the height of self-delusion. A sixteen-year old in no way possessed the mental facilities that a fifty-year old adult should have, and yet Rory was seemingly playing the playground blame game. She was the one who had wanted that kid; that kid had no choice as to being born or not being born at all. She was the one, for more reasons than one, who should have to bear the brunt of responsibility when it came to their relationship. Not a 16- year old child. Out of all the things Lily confided in her, perhaps this was the one that infuriated her the most.

At the tender age she was at, Lorelai had to admit to herself that she hated to still be the matriarch of the family whose job it was to soothe ruffled feathers and take on other's problems as if they were their own. But when duty called, she never refused.

After they finished talking, a smile spread across Lily's face. "Thank you for listening. I've never told anyone… I've just… I've just never been really that close with anyone… to trust them not to tell anyone else…" she said, her voice faltering towards the end, a faraway look in her face as though reliving old memories again. "Please, don't talk to her, OK? She's never going to change and I don't mind. I'm just – I'm actually glad I'm here now. Thank you for listening."

Lorelai nodded, finding it heartbreaking that Lily thought her own problems to be so unworthy of listening to she expressed her gratitude almost after every sentence. "It's no problem, really." She replied. "I'm your grandmother. You don't have to thank me." Lorelai squeezed Lily's little palms and Lily smiled the most genuine and heartfelt smile Lorelai had ever seen on her face. It made her ten times more beautiful.

"Thank you," Lily said, and then, "Sorry. I didn't mean that. I mean, I meant it, I just – Whatever." And they both burst out laughing. After the rain came the rainbow.

* * *

At 10 o' clock sharp, Lorelai's cell phone rang as it did every night. She let it ring out once, twice, and then a third time. This was the time they had agreed on for their weekly phone calls. Initially, they had been daily, but as nothing of much interest happened day to day, they eventually reduced the number. But she wasn't sure if she wanted to talk now. She was still contemplating what to tell her daughter when the time came, or if she should say anything at all.

In the end, Lorelai decided to at least honor their agreement. She exited the house, sat on the patio (the cool air calming her somewhat), and finally called her daughter back. It rang out once, twice –

"Mom!" Rory's cheery voice spoke into the phone. She sounded like she had had a good day. "Finally! I've been calling you like a maniac, you know! Did you forget to turn off silent mode again?" Rory asked, chuckling.

Lorelai wasn't in the mood for laughs or jokes. She was breathing in and out heavily, torn between breaking her promise to her already emotionally distraught granddaughter, or doing what she thought was right, damn the consequences.

"M-Mom? Is there something wrong?" Rory asked tentatively, her voice laced with worry.

Lorelai pursed her lips and swallowed hard before replying. "I need to talk to you about Lily."

"Oh my God! What did she do this time?" Rory asked exasperatedly.

A wave of irritation washed over Lorelai, but she quelled it. "No, Rory," she said in a low voice hoarse with emotion, "It's not about what Lily did. It's about what you did to her."

* * *

A/N: Sorry, this was an angstier chapter. The next one is going to be about Lily starting school at Chilton and we'll see more of the blossoming (or not?) relationship between her and James. Stay tuned, and let me know your opinions meanwhile! Thank you for reading.


End file.
